Ron Rivera won't talk about what the Washington Football Team would have to give up to trade for Houston quarterback Deshaun Watson. But, Washington's head coach is willing to talk about what he'd have to give up to get a player of Watson's caliber.
During his weekly appearance with The Sports Junkies, presented by F.H. Furr, Rivera was asked about the NFL's upcoming trade deadline, scheduled for Tuesday, Nov. 2.
Considering the "coach-centric" approach put in place when Rivera was hired in Jan. 2020, the coach was asked who — between he, GM Martin Mayhew, Executive VP of Player Personnel Marty Hurney, and team owners Dan and Tanya Snyder — would have the final decision to pull the trigger on a trade for someone like Watson.
"Okay now, let's make sure everybody knows, because I can't talk about a player on somebody else's roster right now," Rivera prefaced his response. "But if you were to make a trade with anybody in the league, the idea is you sit down, you talk about it. Then you go back and you watch tape. Then you go back and you sit down with the coordinator, and you talk about how that person would fit into what we do.
"Then you would sit there and you'd say, 'Okay, now, what are we willing to give up? Are we willing to give up some core players that we've put in place? Are we willing to give up draft picks into the future?' And then decide. Hey, if this is the type of package we want to offer, and we're okay getting rid of a couple of first-round picks we've had the last couple of years and a couple of picks to come, then you're willing to make that deal."
The Sports Junkies followed up by asking for clarification on who would make that final call, whether Rivera would have to present that deal to the owner(s).
"I guess now it would be [co-owner and co-CEO] Tanya [Snyder]," said John-Paul Flaim. "Right?"
"Well we would most certainly have to take it to the ownership and let them know what we're thinking," Rivera said. "And, again, at the end of the day, if the ownership is happy with it, we're gonna do it. But it does come down to my decision."
"I'm gonna try to get all the information, get everything I need, and make a smart decision that we believe is gonna help this franchise," he continued. "The thing you always have to be careful about too, fellas, is making a trade that's gonna set the franchise back — not a year or two, but three or four.
"Again, we're not in position where we're playing for the now, immediate, gotta-have-it, must-get-it-done. You know what I'm saying? I mean, we're not in that position right now. We're in the position of: Hey, let's make sure we're building it right; we're putting the pieces in place so that this can sustain it."
"We got into Carolina and, again, as I look at some of these things retrospectively, the one thing we wish we could have said was the picks after our first three drafts, how good were we with those to help sustain it?" Rivera said. "That's the thing that you have to look at, and we missed on a couple of those picks and that kind of hurts ya.
"So, we feel good about what we've done. We feel good about the guys that are in place. We see the growth and development. And you sit there and say, 'God, if we get this next piece into place, we'll feel pretty good about going forward.'"
